Background

Established in 2009, Uniform Wares is a British company that designs and manufactures luxury watches based on contemporary British design and engineering, selling to a list of over 130 international retailers in 35 countries including independent fashion boutiques, department stores and design and lifestyle retailers.

Uniform Wares realised that their current website did not provide a basis on which to grow the direct-to-consumer side of the business, launch into new international markets, or promote the Uniform Wares brand story, so in 2014 they began looking for partners to help them create a new and industry leading e-commerce experience.

This case study describes the work carried out by Priocept to deliver the new www.uniformwares.com website built on the Demandware enterprise e-commerce platform.

Technology Landscape and Product Selection

With so many e-commerce products and vendors in the marketplace today, all claiming to provide an end-to-end solution, businesses such as Uniform Wares need to establish which of these solutions is the most appropriate for them, taking into account user experience requirements, growth expectations, and internal technical capabilities.

Uniform Wares therefore needed an advisor to help them navigate through the process of technology platform selection and to ensure that the right software platform was implemented to enable and fuel their long-term growth.

With a proven track record in successfully helping clients with an independent technology selection process through to the delivery of high quality e-commerce solutions, Priocept were appointed as Uniform Wares’ implementation partner. In the case of Uniform Wares, it was clear that whilst the online store was an important aspect, it was essential to look “beyond the website” and understand the requirements across the entire Uniform Wares business, including how to interact electronically with suppliers and resellers as well as with customers.

Priocept’s analysis concluded that several system components would be required to support Uniform Wares direct-to-consumer e-commerce sales. Suitable software products where then evaluated and shortlisted and key functionality was prototyped using the shortlisted products to ensure fit to requirements and to prove the capabilities of particular solutions.

The product selection process concluded with Demandware being selected as the e-commerce solution on which the new website would be built.  Demandware is an enterprise cloud commerce platform that empowers retailers to unify their online and offline operations at scale. It was chosen for its flexibility and cost-effectiveness, allowing Uniform Wares to maximise growth in online sales across international markets.  Cybersource was selected as the payment service provider, providing out-of-the-box integrations with the Demandware platform for reduced implementation effort and costs.

NetSuite was also procured to provide back-end order management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management for Uniform Wares manufacturing processes. ZenDesk was added for customer services and support, along with Silverpop for email marketing and Linkshare (Rakuten Affliate Network) for affliate marketing.

The Solution

Priocept worked in partnership with creative agency Collective London to develop visual designs for the new website and then set about customising Demandware to implement these designs. New responsive design templates were required to facilitate the “browse and buy” user journeys on all devices including desktop, tablets and smartphones, along with implementation of Demandware’s geo-location features to enable differing pricing, taxation and shipping schemes required to support international purchases.

The Priocept software development team then completed the integrations with Cybersource, NetSuite, LinkShare and Silverpop. The new Uniform Wares site went live on the Demandware platform six months after the initial appointment of Priocept.

Results

Following launch, the new website exceeded all sales targets in the first quarter of trading and is now the primary sales channel for various Uniform Wares product ranges.

Within six weeks of launch, a new strap section was added to the site with little or no assistance required from the development team, proving that the Demandware platform allows for complete control over merchandising strategy and product ranges internally within Uniform Wares.

Using the out-of-the-box features in Demandware for campaigns and promotions, Uniform Wares have also successfully run events for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas periods, driving further increases in online sales.

Priocept have worked tirelessly to deliver a site and e-commerce platform that is beautifully crafted but also thoroughly robust. Without their input, we would not be able to confidently extend our brand into more overseas markets.

New product ranges are planned with the Demandware based website becoming central to the marketing and sales activity around these product launches.